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Hehe The 50's ostensibly were an idyllic time....for some. But in looking back I was amazed at how I was so atypical from what was going on in the society at large especially in the economic sphere. It took time for all that to sink in. Later on when one is older one can see in what way things were sooooooo different. TV ironically was 'dreams ille' but nevertheless it provided 'realities' to all of society. My family sure did not bask completely in that wonderful aura of seemingly 50's vitality and a great push toward another horizon. The so- called 'American Dream' was on hold. But only for a while. Once one gets bearings as to realities and how to maneuver in American society. It's the name of the game around here. Everybody goes through it!
I started elementary school back in the early 50's. We lived on a dirt road on a 100 acre farm right above the river which ran through the center of our farm. Money was scarce but life was simple. Our home didn't have a lock on the door. We grew most every thing we ate. Staples were mostly the only items bought at the store such as flour, coffee, sugar and salt. Mom bought flavorings from the Watkins man to make cakes and pies. We grew our own corn to make corn meal. It was much better than anything I can get at the grocery store now.
We helped supplement Dad's salary with collecting herbs which we sold to the herb man. Witch Hazel was made from what we called beadwood leaves. We dried them in the ceiling of our cellar. We also collected pollen to be used to make medicines.
We had several pigs, two or three cows and a hen house. We collected leaves in the woods every day in winter to put in the pig pen to keep the pigs warm. We had a mule for Dad to use to plow the fields.
In the summer we hoed corn, lots of corn. That was before the weed spray came along to kill weeds in the corn. We grew sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, green beans, sweet corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, onions, turnip and mustard greens, corn field peas, beets, green peas, rhubarb, etc.
Creasy greens grew wild in the corn fields and branch lettuce grew by the creek. We had blackberries in our cow pasture along with apple trees. Mom used tree roots to make tea for us when we got a cold. We had several feet of grape vines. We ate them fresh and Mom made jelly and juice from them. We also had several hives of honeybees. Strawberries grew wild. Dad bought peaches and apples seasonally by the bushel. Bananas were bought on Saturday afternoon for a special price from a local merchant who closed on Sunday. They were usually pretty ripe so Mom made huge banana puddings that disappeared on Sunday. You can never have too much banana pudding.
Our creek was stocked with trout and my brothers would catch about 100 of them every summer to have for dinner. There was a daily limit per person to catch. We could fish with worms without buying a license.
In summer we would put rocks at the narrow place in the creek and make a pond about three or four feet high for a swimming hole. We dug crawfish out of the sand and played with them. Our property had a mica deposit that we liked to play on. They were like little pieces of glass. We climbed trees and made teepees out of trees in the woods for a playhouse. We built sleds and made a leaf trail to slide down on the sled. We used tree branches and wooden strip pieces to make model trucks and cars and made roads in the side of the hill to run them on. That was really fun.
We went to church every Sunday and most Wednesdays and sometimes Saturday night preaching. People were baptized in the creek. It was a good life. Mom made most of my dresses.
1950 was about the time we first got electricity and Dad had the house wired and a refrigerator and washing machine ready to go when we got our first "juice" from the REA. Mom liked her wood stove for canning though. She got an electric stove much later but kept her wood stove in her basement until she died.
...kids did everything together -- in hordes -- because there were so many kids.
This is vital in understanding the period. People who did not grow up in the 1950's toss around the idea of "baby boomers" but unless one visits a country like India, it's hard to imagine how many kids were around, everywhere. Some sources estimate the percentage of children under 17 by the end of the decade to be nearly 40% of the population. Today it's about 22%.
Re: 'The Fifties isn't just a nostalgia trip, it is an entirely different way of living and thinking too'
For sure. Since that time to our present day we can see the slowly inexorable rise of having illusions but living with great ironies among them. The time of 'innocence' in our age is one second compared to its time in the nostalgic past.
She got an electric stove much later but kept her wood stove in her basement until she died.
No doubt she kept that wood stove "just in case."
My dad was never able to escape the fear he derived from having gone through the Great Depression. Everyday he lived he expected the economy to nose dive at any time. He lived 80 years with that crippling expectation.
We had a circa 1940 Servel gas refrigerator that we had in the kitchen until the door handle broke off and then it moved to the basement with a makeshift door latch. It was still there and working like a champ when my parents moved away in the mid 1970s. If the power went off for a while we just moved stuff to the gas refrigerator until it came back on.
Apparently they still make LP models for folks who live off the grid.
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Great thread
